The World's Unsexiest Business

CSR: "Next in line. Please!"Customer: "Hi."CSR: (Visual acknowledgement followed by awkward drawn out moment of silence)Customer : Thinks to herself, "Hmm not so friendly guy at the convenience store."CSR: "Will that be all ma'am?" (Delivered in a monotone half-mumble)Customer: "Yeah that's all. I guess." Then thinks to herself, "Let me get out of here. Fast! Weird experience."CSR: (Accepts payment and completes checkout process) CSR: ​Thank you. Have [a] nice day.

In some instances, I will refer to the people that work for you as team members while in other instances, they'll be your staff and CSRs. As for the precise nomenclature:Staff / Team Members / Your People: any office or store level employeeCSR: store level customer service representative (employee)

While the above interaction may be slightly exaggerated, it's by no means far fetched. After all, your CSRs are human and can have bad days. You certainly cannot control their temperament nor should you feel the need to do so. But what you can largely influence is the environment of your (and equally their) workplace -- creating and then nurturing open communication and hopefully even (God forbid!) camaraderie. The skeptics might say there's no time for this frivolity or that the development of these 'softer' initiatives pave the way to an incessant stream of rants ultimately leading to possible workplace discontent. To which I'll retort with a reference to Walt Doyle's (CEO of GasBuddy) take on what I'll refer to as the a harsh reality for the Retail 1.0 crowd. (That being the generation of retail entrepreneurs that refuse to embrace digital marketing/communication/lifestyle. By the way, we're currently somewhere around the 4.5 release.)

You no longer own your brandYou can only control the experience.
-Walt Doyle, CEO GasBuddy